More Mobilization Fun: Tracking Your Campaign

Hopefully you’ve read my previous post about how to measure the success of your mobilization campaign (Hint: Did you win?).

But up until that definitive moment when you know you’ve won, it’s helpful to be able to know how well your campaign is doing along the way. I use a whole bunch of different tools to help me track various pieces of my mobilization campaigns. And on larger campaigns, there are lots of moving parts.

If you’re using social networking as part of your campaign (and you really should because not only is it cost effective, but people expect you to use it), there are many nifty tools to help keep track of your efforts.

First, I use Buffer to schedule Tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn posts. Buffer allows you to post at the most optimal times and provides analytic tools as well.

Next, when you use Facebook, it’s easy to see the number of “Likes” your page gets. But if you promote the page and individual status updates via a paid advertising effort, Facebook will track your progress as well.

If you use Twitter™, I measure using Keyhole. It will keep a running total of the number of times a #hashtag is used, show the posts, etc.

 

I also use Cyfe to customize a dashboard that where I can see a live feed of Twitter and Facebook posts that involve the campaign.

I’m currently trying out PopVox to have people send personal (not pre-written) messages to Members of Congress. PopVox also comes with a nifty dashboard and it allows you to download the contact information for anyone who has submitted a message using the site.

For mobilization campaigns where we are asking a group’s members to engage with legislators, we often use phones instead of emails. For many years I have used The Strategy Group Company, Inc.to develop and maintain unique systems to connect people’s calls to their legislator’s office. They have created a number of simple dashboards to allow me to count the number of calls going into offices in real time and to track who makes the call.

I also measure any advertising efforts meant to generate traffic to a campaign’s website. Google Analytics is the best choice around for this.

Stay tuned for future posts where I explain how to interpret the data you collect; why your activists should use Twitter™ to engage legislators; and, left you begin thinking I’m all about how many people take action, how to leverage personal relationships to achieve your advocacy agenda or “sometimes it just takes one conversation.”